Fretless Baritone Build (...and Tone Demo)

[@ldub0775]

all i want for christmas is a clean tone demo

[@kadekiger276]

Ldub0775 same. Especially for this.

[@florencefaulkner782]

What's a clean tone??

[@tom_dilley]

and for him to slide some harmonics

[@Keebrev]

Florence Faulkner a bass tone without any effects, i.e. no distortion, delay, reverb etc

[@Keebrev]

It’s driving me insane that he didn’t play it clean

[@Hippownage]

3:07 "You really don't want a perfectly flat fretboard" Me, a classical guitarist: *TRIGGERED*

[@dylanjwebmusic]

Now play it with a bow

[@Mickocarbomb]

Wouldn't work that easy. He'd need to arc the saddles and nut so the strings arched, using a bow on a guitar like a violin isn't easy. Usually can only hit the low and high e strings.

[@dylanjwebmusic]

@@Mickocarbomb Arc the saddles eh? Maybe that's a good idea for a future project?

[@atwinchester]

Jacob Reichert it actually sounds like something this dude would do

[@dylanjwebmusic]

@@atwinchester what about half the strings arched so you can strum chords on the low notes and bow the high notes. Maybe try some pizzicato guitar? Lots of possibilities

[@THEzTROLLlz]

I've seen someone play an electric bass with a bow, but they modded it to have one string. It's played on öOoOoOoOoOo - Purple Tastes Like White

[@tavicotavio]

Isnt this like the 5th time you ruin this thing

[@AB-vn2jc]

Lawyer Morty sup lawyer morty? I swear I see you everywhere.

[@madiserket2]

you watch STM and Trogly's? Man of culture.

[@tavicotavio]

@@madiserket2 trogly's top subscriber baby

[@metalheadblues]

And you clicked every single time

[@No1WillMakeItOutAlive]

*enhance this thing

[@benlow46]

That’s actually a really clean fret removal job, it looked like you had very little tear out, nice job!

[@DaarthPingas]

A WORD OF ADVICE: if you plan on playing barre chords in standard you can always intonate the strings to be conducive to those chord shapes, as i do with 4 string fretless bass, so that way, lower strings are "below" the fret high up and high strings are "dead on." intonating fretless has more to do with what you're doing with it, rather than "perfectly set intonation," equally. you should also experiment with tremolo picking and tapping riffs as well and not get too fixated on chords.

[@actually5004]

Or just keep your fingers perpendicular to the fretboard like a good guitarist...

[@DaarthPingas]

@@actually5004 ew, no. that's not even solid advice when playing with frets. it's clear you've never owned or played with a fretless bass for enough time to know what you're talking about. playing a 3 note power chord in all 4ths tuning is ridiculously impractical if both intonation points on the higher strings are identical, unless you prefer baring them. even then, a little bit of slant feels better and will be less harsh on the joints of your fingers with an angle. you're locking your fingers in one direction instead of stressing them back and forth when sliding or adding vibrato.

[@actually5004]

@@DaarthPingas I've been playing my Douglas 6 string fretless for 4 years now and I'm a bass player of 12 years and if you're "locking" your fingers in any situation you're gonna hurt yourself with time. Keeping your fingers parallel to the neck is all about having the neck high enough and angled up enough to both keep your wrist somewhat parallel to your forearm to prevent carpal compression while maintaining proper thumb positioning on the back of the neck. Keeping fingers at 90 degrees to the fretboard prevents twisting stresses on your joints and allows a more fluid "back and forth" vibrato instead of a chiseling motion that can cause skipping across the strings during a glissando (that's what a slide is called, btw). Not being flexible enough to hit notes is a reason to *practice*, not to espouse bad embouchure on the internet.

[@mr.fictionaloxymoron3643]

I really really like this thing... I think those slow sliding power chords sound amazing and I think it has potential for some nice deathcore Great video as always Djent on man🤘

[@aidanzimmer9482]

this guy is sooo unrated it’s not ok🥺🥺

[@stephenhodgeman6496]

For real. He inspired a few projects that I did. I'm legit the only guy in my area with a 34" scale guitar lol. All thanks to Kevin.

[@aidanzimmer9482]

Stephen Hodgeman HE HAS BANGING CONTENT IM SO HAPPY WE HAVE SOMEONE LIKE THIS HE DESERVES SOOOO MANY MORE SUBS BROO

[@stephenhodgeman6496]

For real! I'm subscribed to Davie504 and Stevie T... They're both over 2 million subs. This guy should be on their level!

[@theyeetmeister4019]

Stevie and jered are about to have to dig up the surfboards to fight this

[@68able2]

ITS LIKE YOU ARE READING MY MIND!!! i saw the darell braun fretless guitar build and i had to try it, i got plenty of use out of my fretless but i knew you could do something cool with it. keep up the awesome work man

[@silverdoesmc891]

You should try putting in some EXTRA frets with something now, go microtonal!

[@RockStarOscarStern634]

Now you can play Slide Blues without a Slide on a Fretless Baritone.

[@moonchild4806]

Bumblefoot has been messing with fretless guitars for a while. I know some Bass VI enthusiasts have messed with some fretless designs too. I might have to build myself a fretless baritone for some fretless spaghetti western.

[@calinguga]

you must

[@wvlf]

this is really cool, I've watched a fair bit of your videos and you deserve a lot more love

[@No1WillMakeItOutAlive]

I always love ur projects man, u do the kind of stuff that so many of us imagine but that we don’t have the know how to do

[@stephenhodgeman6496]

3:24 that's almost what Jaco Pastorius did with his... He used epoxy, but that's just a minor detail.

[@wbwillie]

marine epoxy at that

[@gregoryhunter7413]

Sounds great! I would love to play one of these wild hybrid instruments

[@Zawmbbeh]

4:57 definitely my favorite riff here

[@stephenhodgeman6496]

6:43, the only tip I can give you, is to play right on the fret line instead of a couple millimeters away. Other than that, great execution!

[@SaidTooMuchProductions]

I heard the opposite, the edge of your whole finger print is where you're fretting, not the center of your finger

[@stephenhodgeman6496]

@@SaidTooMuchProductions I played my "fretless" into a tuner, and used the outcome for intonation... That may be different for what you did. You're prolly better at this than I am, but I do have a good amount of success playing Primus fretless lines lol.

[@SaidTooMuchProductions]

I mean, if it sounds good, it is good lol

[@joshstarkey8883]

@@SaidTooMuchProductions For me it ends up being more like the edge of the finger on the line, like you say. Plus or minus a bit for string gauge, or for playing just intonated intervals etc. Ultimately you need to constantly use your ear. Developing muscle memory makes it easier over time too, you still need to listen of course though. It wasn't like learning a whole new instrument for me because I was already used to playing a fretted bass the exact same scale length.

[@mattiapascal2275]

@@SaidTooMuchProductions idk just check with the tuner and wherever works it's ok

[@davidfinstein9911]

It sounds so awesome!

[@stephenhodgeman6496]

1:19/1:52 I don't consider myself a legit luthier, but I've done a few fret removal operations. I used a clothing iron and a metal ruler to heat up the frets... Then I used a small flathead screwdriver to jimmy the fret out lol. Then I filled in the gaps with wood putty, and voila! (: Your idea is also just as legit though.

[@thijs199]

You probably are going to want to wet sand that neck a couple more times, when the water dries up you can see all the spots where there the neck still isn't uniform (because those places won't dry up as fast)

[@phnxsu]

It Sounds So Damn Awesome In My Opinion ^^

[@stevepethel6843]

Love your creative innovative mods...

[@selene2951]

awesome job! i loved the ideas here.

[@therealandrew185]

Check out Buzz Gravelle. He's a classical guitarist, but man he really takes advantage of all the textures you can get from a fretless guitar. He makes some beautiful music.

[@GrumpyTy34er]

I know Chapman said this one one of their old guitars. Sounded neat

[@stephenhookings1985]

Love the sliding pickup. My superglued neck is on its 3rd coat. The Beatles allegedly used a fretless guitar.

[@lordvalen8133]

The two-tone fingerboard is secretly genius. The fret loc actions are still present but are merely a suggestion.

[@ezatos4499]

Dominic "forest" lapointe, Beyond creation thats all i'll say ^^

[@actually5004]

pin this for real

[@livy1962]

7 minutes I'll never get back. DAMN!

[@hipnoninja]

bonkers! love it!!!!!! get this man a band saw!!!!

[@DommoDommo]

This one was super rad

[@zvjatouslawinc.7098]

Fretless ACOUSTIC Baritone!

[@calinguga]

i've been working on a fretless bass vi kind of instrument for a while, sat down to design the schematic and couldn't decide between a bass cut and a phase switch. opened youtube for inspiration and here we go :)

[@dillondriskill6403]

i think the microtonal part is really cool. king gizzard stuff right there

[@jamesdarrigo8277]

This is awesome dude

[@RockStarOscarStern634]

Said Too Much that sounds like the Synth with a portamento with is good, perhaps the Fretless Baritone could use same 4 Pickups like the Brice Bass.

[@TTheLemon]

Sounds awesome!

[@anthonyrc6618]

2 tunings that you might like could be MinorMajor7 tunings: F, G#, C, E, C, f or F, C, E, C, F, G#. They prevent you from using barre chords, but on a fretless, I found the tunings to be pretty interesting, and pretty fun on the fretboard given that you move around a lot. Given how long they are as well, barre chords might not be that necessary.

[@austinkash]

4:13 is great

[@countsnekula1077]

Dude. Bumblefoot. It wasn’t a baritone, but he did have a fretless Metal neck with some really fun tonalities! He used a double neck Vigier with a fretted and fretless neck. Maybe something to consider if you’re looking to do more fretless stuff.

[@nmnmnm9509]

Fretless bass+extra high notes= Michael Manning + his Zon bass. But distortion is more than enough.

[@joshstarkey8883]

Perfect instrument to jam with my Brice fretless in drop A

[@RockStarOscarStern634]

What a bluesy sound

[@wesleyzimmerman94]

French brand Vigier already makes a fretless guitar. Theirs just uses a special kind of metal (they call it iMetal) for the fretboard instead of just being a normal instrument minus frets

[@xeno42alpha]

Yaaay microtones!

[@Slinging_INK]

I wouldn't trust him with a $1,000 guitar XD Loved the vid

[@damienhelmold6978]

Ur videos are cool

[@GrumpyTy34er]

You know, looking back, the soldering iron to heat up the glue is a good idea in theory but meat also expands when heated

[@stephenhodgeman6496]

1:58... I've definitely hit my hand a few times lol.

[@Herfinnur]

It would be nice to hear what it actually sounds like. With this sound it should as well be a guitar with a fuzz

[@stephenhodgeman6496]

Sorry for blowing up the comments, but this is awesome lol

[@CamAnd13]

It would be a lot better if you test the mods that you do to all your instruments not only with the tons of distortion :/ A couple of tests with the clean tone would be a little bit more satisfying to hear to

[@SaidTooMuchProductions]

I know, this is just my default tone, theres a clean bass tone in there mixed with a distorted guitar, I eventually post more videos featuring the instrument with refined tones after I've messed around a little more

[@CamAnd13]

@@SaidTooMuchProductions Then, i will wait for them! I really like your vids, thanks for replying

[@pieterworm9211]

Check out thank you scientist, Tom momda has been using a frettless guitar for a while on some songs. Edit: his play through of terraformer is a great video if you're interested

[@peehandshihtzu]

Dude I just looked it up, You win the internet today, and that video was hilarious! :)

[@anthonynocito9447]

If you check out Sean Angus Watson. He has a fretless barri and does some cool stuff from funk to classical on it 🤷‍♂️

[@rubaiyatdunno482]

Imo this thing would make great nu metal and doom metal riffs

[@obeythehomeless]

this would be amazing for some doom metal

[@regalseagull6810]

Microtonal baritone next

[@cobalt._.27]

Tell that to the Wyoming Lottery. They are microtonal experts IMO

[@mattiapascal2275]

i've played fretless bass for a year, to me the transition to the fretlesss wasn't traumatic (it has inlays whithout i'd be lost) one thing to not fuck too mutch with the fretboard is to slide instead of bending the strings, the fretboard of my bass suffered a bit because of that, however is nothing too noticeable and i don't know of any fixes, so if anyone has to say something i'm listening. for bass its cool to do diads, slides, just don't overuse them for band there are plenty with bass, i recommand intronaut, for guitar the only band i'm aware of is thank you sientist

[@actually5004]

Just do the last few steps he did in his conversion, lay down some thin layers of epoxy and sand it back smooth while maintaining the radius. If you're still dead-set on round-wounds you can also try micro-coated Elixer strings- they're much easier on a fretboard than something like Hi-Beams.

[@Pipumontes]

hey try putting a microphone on the bass head or on the first fret

[@illican]

extermination dismemberment uses a fretless bass while playing slam, they tune pretty low so the bass drops right at the first hit of a slam are DEVASTATING, they crank the volume on the bass up for them as well so it becomes straight-up thunderous at times

[@HunterSkyeMusic]

I love the sound of microtonal metal #ProbablyGannaDoSomethingLikeThis

[@lucasalmaraz1107]

you can try a tremolo bridge bass

[@didi_abdillah]

advantage of fretless is you can get 1/1000 note intervals

[@MeatisMagic256]

1 HZ intervals.

[@peehandshihtzu]

Now all you need is a violin bow, :)

[@andrewcaruso3543]

Dead Poet Society uses a frettless on occasion and makes some interesting use of it! The song .swvrm. is a great example.

[@andvgeo2253]

Sounds amazing, why did you finish the neck with superglue?

[@stephenhodgeman6496]

6:31 I do like the classical idea... But neo classical would be awesome. Some slightly technical leads or something...

[@copescale9599]

Neat

[@Toleyshreds]

He is very animated

[@karangurung1182]

Ron Thal and Billy Sheehan use fretless guitar and bass with Sons of Apollo

[@TheLowest]

I'd like to see someone attempt a half fretless guitar, where the bottom 3 strings are fretless and the top 3 are fretted.

[@SaidTooMuchProductions]

Thatd be hard cuz if you just removed the bottom frets youd end up just fretting the next closest fret pushing the string down in that area

[@AlexIsASeraphim]

Isn't there an old clip with Adrian Belew playing a fretless guitst but the neck is also made of rubber?

[@MichaelStoneham]

Did you ever fix the buzzing we want a clean tone demo

[@golduckroger]

Wow, I just finished a super glue finish on my fretless bass conversion project about a week ago. Ran into some issues to say the least lmao

[@actually5004]

He was using epoxy for the finish coat..

[@golduckroger]

@@actually5004 3:11

[@maffooo2040]

Maybe you could refret it in quarter steps to reliably use microtonality Edit: or you could have half fretless, half fretted - i think that would be really unique

[@ulfdanielsen6009]

Ibanez has a 7 string bass along those lines.

[@GuyNamedSean]

Ulf Danielsen - That beast is my absolute dream.

[@yes-vt3uh]

If you want metal fretless guitar, I suggest a band called Dead Poet Society:) Lo Air is an incredible song

[@cobalt._.27]

DO THIS WITH THE 3 STRING FLORIDA BASS

[@jimbles717]

All we need now is a whammy bar

[@ulfdanielsen6009]

With the mods you have already done you could conceivably cover the entire spectrum of the string sections of a symphony orchestra. A multi split screen metal demo song with every single instrument playing a part of the backing and melody? From the lowest bass to the high pitches of the violins including the range of the Therobo over the Baroque guitar to Floyd Rose equipped high pitched wailing lead guitars... Look to Brandon Acker for inspiration. Just a thought.

[@topsecret1837]

What if instead of using the left hand like a typical guitar you put it more into a claw which allows for more precise notes? That’s how Cellists do fingering on a feet less fingerboard.

[@doomslayer_ch4280]

surprised you didn’t play any Royal Blood riffs

[@stinky_lizard]

It must go LOWER i wanna hear DROP E when you sort out the wiring issue for the revisit of this in the next video

[@Reprodestruxion]

Now for a diy sustainer

[@nicholas72611]

Tom Fountainhead Geldschläger plays fretless tech death

[@sieni221]

Sounds like sunn)))

[@stephenhodgeman6496]

Just a reminder, chords won't come out the greatest on a fretless. I love what you're doing though. It's like several projects of mine combined... With slightly better execution lol.

[@RockStarOscarStern634]

Why not update with 4 pickups like Brice Bass.

[@thataway1684]

I dare you to tune it exactly like a guitar and add a whammy bar.

[@miloenstad8366]

That's a coping saw, not a hack saw, at least where I am

[@josephharvey1762]

Someone get Leprous one of these bois

[@reliktim]

Did you put round string on fretless instrument? Dam, what a madman.

[@AB-vn2jc]

I think that sleep would make good use off this, fuzz this thing and do some stoner rock.

[@caseytinsley]

A razor blade is the easiest way to remove frets, other than a fret puller.

[@nicklancaster3190]

Re-fret it to be diatonic. A straight rhythm bass player's dream/nightmare...

[@RockStarOscarStern634]

@UCQoElgBw4Rb5zI37trQvGZQ The really cool thing about a Fretless Baritone is that you can play bluesy music on it & a really good one you should try is Nutbush City Limits as a tribute to Naya Rivera from Glee:kzbin.info/www/bejne/eoXFl5SQe6yeZrs cause Naya Rivera sadly died. It'll be in Drop G Tuning (G1, D2, G2, C3, E3, A3).

[@elliotjgc]

Best players of fretless guitar players that coe to mind are guys like Fountainhead, bumblefoot and guthrie govan.

[@natesharlette]

Nice, can you make a fretless instrument without filling the fret gaps with wood?? Nevermind, I didn’t realize that you answered my question within the vid😂

[@MattPlaysBass25]

Play it with a slide